Saturday, December 14, 2013

Human Sacrifice

It's one thing to volunteer one's life for a cause. It's another to fail to protect innocent people from the lethal consequences of your cause.

One year from Sandy Hook and I can't look at the news. I can't be dragged down into the emotional turmoil that felt as if it was tearing at me from inside as more details of that tragic day unfolded. It's too much. It's too sad. And it doesn't end.

It won't. Because among the things I've learned since Sandy Hook, I've come to realize how deeply fearful Americans can be, which combined with our stubbornness and our willingness to cling to what appeals to us even if it's irrational sets us up for bad policy again and again. Combine that with commerce and power and marketing and pseudo-patriotic machismo and we will remain a danger to ourselves and others for a long time to come. It boggles my mind.

Because there are lots of rights and concepts that may be good to argue about in theory, but when the reality is the brutal, senseless deaths of children, I don't care about the abstract anymore. I care about those children. I care about my children.

But apparently the potential death of my children is not worth any inconvenience to people who like their rights the way they are. Nothing will change because too many have concluded the cause is worthy of human sacrifice. I just don't see why simply being an American, though, requires we all be part of that deadly lottery.

I wanted to be completely shocked that the gun control measures didn't pass, but I wasn't. There are so many people here who place, not simply GUN ownership, but semi-automatic weapon ownership, as such a basic right that the idea of any kind of 'restrictions' seem unreasonable. I try to listen and understand, but just can't.

Your last line in particular resonated with me. I hear so much from the other side about how "American" it is to own guns. We don't all feel that way. -Lisa